Originally Posted by DArtagnan
The trash cans and cash registers were boring

Nah, I'm talking about unique content - like the audio logs, the commentary by Elizabeth - which was context sensitive, art, the "gear", and so on. Every single room in that game felt like it was a place with a history and purpose - much more so than the generic areas you find in most freeform exploration games.

Again, to me, exploration isn't just about hidden areas - but about the actual exploration of what's there.

In a typical Bioware game, for instance, you follow a similar linear path - but you don't really get rewarded for exploring the areas. Most areas are very sparsely populated with content - and everything important is shoved right in your face.

BI had such a sense of place and such a marvellous level of detail - that I greatly enjoyed exploring all the areas - obvious or not.

You're talking about loot, art assets, etc. Yeah, it's great to have high-quality content, but I'm talking about the limits of the actual areas and the way you can traverse them. I understand what you're saying though, and I agree that it's part of the exploration.

And yeah.. BI was definitely much better than most Bioware games in that aspect. Their games since the the BG series have been terrible in regards to exploration. The only exception was DA: Origins + expansion which had a decent amount things you could find. Even then, that was only if you didn't abuse the Tab key.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
It's true that it's not really freeform exploration. But freeform exploration is only good when you're actually rewarded for your efforts. Most freeform games don't do that very well. The best examples are PB games and a few TES games. Well, and some of the older RPGs - like Baldur's Gate.

Well to be honest, there aren't really a lot of true open-world games to begin with. But yeah… I was thinking mainly of TES and Gothic/Risen.